The Power of Thoughts

When you find your self feeling down, take a few moments and trace back to what you have been thinking about. For it is what you are thinking rather than the situation that is happening at the time that creates the feeling of being down, rather than the situation itself.

A situation does not cause you to feel. It is what you THINK about the situation that causes the feeling. Let’s take public speaking for an example.

You have been invited to give a speech to a group of your peers. This is the situation. How you feel about that situation depends on how you begin to think about doing this speech.

If you are thinking, “Oh my goodness. They are all going to be looking at me and my hair needs to be done. They are going to think that I am stupid and don’t know what I am talking about. They will not like what I have to say to them,” and so on, and so on.

And how do you feel when you think these thoughts? Most likely scared and embarrassed and upset and insecure, and a whole range of emotions that are unique to you depending on the thoughts that you have about this situation.

But another may be thinking a different type of thought like, “Oh how exciting. I finally get to share my expertise with my peers. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. I am so happy and grateful to be given this opportunity.”

And with this type of thoughts comes a whole different range of feelings, those which you call pleasant. You may feel happy and excited and look forward to doing this work.

So what is the difference that causes the feelings to be different? What you are thinking about the situation.

It is never the situation itself that creates the feelings you have but how you think and talk to yourself and what you believe about the situation that leads to how you feel.

Think about this next time a situation leaves you feeling distressed. Change your thoughts and your feelings change. You have the power to do this to improve your life.

And if you find yourself thinking, “I can’t do that.” Then guess what? That’s what you get – you can’t do that. So change that thought to “I can do that” and then do it and see what happens.

Over time this change in thinking will become automatic for you and you will see great improvement in your life and it all starts with your thoughts.